Meet Jack Underwood, co-founder of Circuit
With an enthusiasm for product design, co-founder and CEO Jack Underwood is on a mission to build better mobile experiences and the creation of the Route Planner in 2017 was just the start of Circuit’s growth. Having started Circuit aged just 23, the company has since expanded to include a B2B offering too. Circuit’s co-founder, Pol Kuijken, spent years designing products for consumers at Runtastic, Adidas and Google, before joining Circuit to continue his journey.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
Circuit’s mission is to fix the broken last mile delivery system. Usually, when there are multiple stakeholders (in this case the stakeholders are drivers, couriers/retailers, and recipients) one wins at the expense of the others, however in last mile delivery the experience is poor for all.
Consider the example of someone who’s at work when a delivery is attempted. The chances are that delivery is attempted again the next day at a similar time (as the route the driver takes will be similar), so again it will be missed. This doesn’t work for anyone, the courier has multiple deliveries attempts and often in the end the recipient needs to pick the goods up elsewhere.
All this frustration, wasted time and money could be solved if the recipient just had a way of communicating to the courier/driver about their schedule and that re-attempting will be a waste of time.
The issue remains unless these stakeholders begin to function within the same ecosystem, where they can each communicate seamlessly with one another. This is what Circuit has set out to build.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
A truly great user experience is what sets Circuit’s software apart from our competition. In the case of Circuit Route Planner, as it is an app that is used for hours each day - everything from load speed, how much you type for a search result to animations are constantly being optimised to provide the best UX possible. As drivers are completing the same flow of adding a stop or making a delivery, 100x per day, the impact of great UX is multiplied and has even more of an impact than for other apps.
Circuit develops multiple last mile delivery applications for different stakeholders simultaneously, leveraging the distribution and product network effects to outcompete more focused competition.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
It never gets any easier, the types of challenges just change. You need to continuously be learning and become comfortable being uncomfortable if you’re to keep growing.
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
1. Know how to identify unrealised opportunities. The key is to look for areas where the current product or service offering is not great, but still has people buying or using the product or using it.
2. Don’t stress about industry connections. You don’t need an established network or impressive array of industry connections to start a successful business. A great product will open doors for you.
3. Base your economics on the single customer, not the masses.
What plans do you have for Circuit over the next two years?
We’re working to bring a package tracking app to iOS, and to drive greater usage of the product to ensure we fully understand the problems recipients have. After that, we’ll be looking to build cross-product features that let us significantly improve the delivery experience for all 3 stakeholders.
What’s the single most important decision that you made that contributed to your business?
To start the business with a partner that had a complementary skill set so that we could do the core work well. For us, that was designing and building a product. Doing this well was the single most important thing.
How did you fund the launch of your business and what creative strategies did you use to execute a minimal cash flow?
Charging from the first day was an integral part of funding our business, we were forced to solve problems and provide real value right away.
Once you get some scale, try to negotiate NET-30 or ideally NET-60 payment terms. This unlocks short term working capital that you can invest into growing faster, once negotiated. As your spending with vendors improves, more of this working capital becomes available.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
“Is my product meaningfully better than it was 6 months ago?”
How do you believe the evolution of tech will affect your industry over the next 10 years?
Consumers will have a faster, cheaper and more reliable delivery experience than ever before. One day, shipping will become the default for the majority of products. Dynamically allocated deliveries means that the larger courier companies of today will increasingly outsource the last mile part of their delivery operations to platforms that can offer the same level of service for a lower price.
What would be your top marketing tip, to grow a business that is niche?
Lean on paid ads! These have fast feedback cycles which lets you iterate extremely quickly.
